This invention relates to stacker-sorters, and particularly to currency stacker-sorters.
It is often desirable in commerce to stack currency and, prior to stacking, to sort the currency by denomination. Currency stacking is a standard feature in currency validators, which require some means for orderly storage after validation of a bill. Some validators also sort currency, storing each denomination in a separate compartment. A number of stacking techniques and sorting techniques have been proposed, as illustrated by the following patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 3,655,186 Bayha Apr. 11, 1972 3,917,260 Okkonen et al. Nov. 4, 1975 4,000,892 Novak et al. Jan. 4, 1977 4,011,931 Wyckoff Mar. 15, 1977 4,418,824 Gorgone et al. Dec. 6, 1983 4,473,157 Hirose et al. Sep. 25, 1984 4,517,451 Kokubo et al. May 14, 1985 ______________________________________
Kokubo et al., Hirose et al. and Gorgone et al. disclose currency stackers which are capable of sorting currency by denomination. Gorgone et al. discloses a dual stacker having a receptacle for temporarily receiving a note from a slot acceptor, and a pair of stacking compartments, one on each side of the receptacle. Such a design suffers from lack of versatility in that it cannot sort currency into more than two stacks. Although some state-of-the-art currency validators sense two denominations, others sense three or more, and therefore it would clearly be advantageous to employ a general purpose design capable of implementation in various stacker-sorter models having different numbers of storage boxes.
Kokubo et al. and Hirose et al. disclose stacker-sorters having three or more compartments in which currency is transferred by means of mechanically complex belt drive mechanisms.